Languages in Contact in South-Eastern Europe

0 Introduction

There is – or used to be - probably more language contact (LC) in South-

Eastern Europe (SEE) than anywhere else in Europe. Intensive LC led to the
rise of the so-called “Balkan Linguistic League” (Balkansprachbund, q.v.)
In Macedonia in the pre-national period adult men typically spoke a number
of different languages or dialects. With the triumph of the nation state on the
French model and the disintegration first of the multilingual empires and
then of multinational states such as Yugoslavia there is less of the traditional
language contact. The principal language contact is now between the
national languages and English.

1. The history of LC in SEE

1.1 The first contact of which we have any evidence is between Greek and
pre-Greek languages as evidenced by pre-Greek loan words in classical
Greek.

1.2 The Roman conquest began in the 2nd century BC. This brought a new
language, Latin, both classical and vulgar Latin, to SEE, which has left a
lasting imprint. Romanian (Rumanian) and Vlach are romance languages
still spoken in SEE, Albanian is a typologically isolated language but it has
been heavily romanized, and there are many Latin loan words in all the
languages of SEE.

1.3 When the Slavs arrived in SEE in the 6th century AD they encountered
Latin and Greek speakers. There was also - as we can assume – a partly
romanized form of Illyrian or Thracian, the ancestor of Albanian.

1.4 In the 7th century the Proto-Bulgarians under Kan Asparukh (Isperikh)
crossed the Danube into what is now Bulgaria. Within a few generations
they were assimilated by the Slavonic majority. Only a few Proto-Bulgarian
loan words have survived in contemporary Bulgarian, attesting to the
relatively small number of the Proto-Bulgarian élite.
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1.5 In 896 the Magyars (Hungarians) moved into Pannonia, thus dividing the
West Slavs from the South Slavs. Hungarian assimilated many Slavonic
words while some Hungarian words entered the Slavonic vocabulary, e.g. in
contemporary Slovak.

1.6 The Bulgarians and the Serbs were converted by Byzantine missionaries
However most of the Greek loan words in BG and Serbian are from the
popular language and testify to the intensive language contacts between
Slavs and Greek speakers.

1.7 The Croats were part of the Hungarian and German-speaking, more
broadly Central-European world. Latin was the official language, until it was
replaced by German. German was also the lingua franca and the language of
communication (Vekehrssprache) for educated people in these areas until the
end of the Hapsburg Empire and even beyond that. Even today the colloquial
language in Zagreb contains many German loan words in an Austrian
phonetic realization. On the Adriatic coast the Croatian dialects were heavily
influenced by Italian.

1.8 Venetian traders travelled widely in SEE and there are many Italian
(Venetian) words in the languages of the region, especially words for
everyday realia, such as sapun “soap”. In the coastal regions we find many
items from the lingua franca.

1.9 The Ottoman Conquest of SEE beginning in the 14th century left an
indelible imprint. Contacts between the Ottomans and the subject peoples
are reflected in the numerous “Turkisms” in the languages of SEE. The
dialects of SEE use many Turkisms, even though with the standardization of
these languages in the 19th and 20th centuries strenuous efforts were made
to eliminate them from normative written texts. Naturally, those areas that
remained longest under Ottoman rule – the Eastern Balkans – also absorbed
the greatest number of Turkisms. Sephardic Jews settled in Macedonia when
they were expelled from Spain and brought with them a variety of Spanish,
which has also been balkanized and influenced by Turkish.

1.10 The role of the towns.

While LC was not restricted to the towns – in many villages we find

speakers of different languages, and villagers had contact with the local
Turkish authorities as well as traders from other regions – the development
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of towns obviously led to particularly intensive LC. While Turkish was the
language of administration, Greek was the language of trade and – for
Christians – the language of religion and culture.

1.11 Of particular interest is the phenomenon of nomadic animal husbandry

or transhumance. In time it also became increasingly common for able-
bodied men to leave their villages on a seasonal basis and work somewhere
else. This phenomenon was referred to as gurbet or pečalba and in the 20th
century these men often went as far as the USA or Australia and brought
back with them, apart from money, foreign clothes and customs and also
English expressions, some of which became established in village dialects.

2 The establishment of the national states in the 19th century

With the establishment of the nation states on the French model in the
19th and 20th centuries language contact declined. “National” languages
were established as the exclusive languages of education and administration.
The exception was the “second” or federal (Titoist) Yugoslavian Federation,
where there was (at least officially) no official federal language and the
languages of the “nationalities” were actively promoted. Under the terms of
the “Lenin Policy on Minorities” in the Stalinist regimes after World War II
minority languages were also initially promoted.
The “first” (post-WWI) Yugoslavia After WWII Josip Broz Tito re-
established Yugoslavia as the only explicitly multinational state in SEE.
Each republic of the federation had its own official language but – as in the
first Yugoslavia – Serbian functioned as a “lingua communis” and as the
command language in the Yugoslavian National Army. Macedonian and
Slovenian were influenced by Serbian or Croatian, which provoked a purist
reaction.
SEE languages are also spoken in Austria, e.g. Burgenland Croatian,
which has been codified as an autonomous variety. “Banat Bulgarian” is still
spoken in Romania, and in Greece “Pomak” has now been codified as an
autonomous variety of Bulgarian.

3. Contemporary developments

3.1 SEE in the 21st century has not escaped the global phenomenon, the
flood of Anglicisms, even though purists are fighting a rearguard action in
opposition to this development. Their efforts are likely to have negligible
results, especially as all traditional authorities, in this case the language
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institute and academies, have little influence in the capitalist and post-
modern societies in contemporary SEE.

3.2 An interesting 21st-century phenomenon is the resurgence of the

Turkisms. These were relegated to the substandard by the more or less purist
codification measures of the 19th and 20th centuries but have now resurfaced
as a potent stylistic device.